Success Has Many Fathers - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 40

Fig. 3.2. Roger L. Easton, former head of the Space Applications Branch at the Naval Research
Laboratory, a few years before he retired in 1980. (Courtesy Naval Research Laboratory)
Roger Easton at the Naval Research Laboratory (nrl) joined the Rocket-
Sonde Branch in 1952. This branch launched Viking sounding rockets—
experimental research rockets that get their name from the nautical term for
taking measurements—from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. 8 The
nrl's Viking rockets should not be confused with the nasa project in the 1970s
for a soft landing on Mars. Launching rockets in the 1950s was a chancy
endeavor. Viking 8 in 1952, despite being bolted down, broke free and took off
during what was supposed to be a static rocket test. Easton said that Milt Rosen,